A commercial system has been developed whereby beverages are dispensed from a plurality of reservoirs, at each of a plurality of remote locations, such as hotel rooms. In response to each dispensing operation, a signal is transmitted to a central location, such as the front desk of the hotel. At the central location, a counter responds each time a beverage is dispensed from each location, to provide a count indicative of the total number of dispensing operations at each location. Generally, alcoholic beverages are dispensed from the reservoirs whereby the count is indicative of the total number of drinks that are served in a hotel room. When a user of the hotel room checks out, the total number of drinks, as indicated by the counter, is multiplied by a fixed factor, indicative of the cost of each drink, to derive an indication of the amount of money to be added to a room rental bill of an occupant of the room.
The prior art system employs relays at the remote locations and electromechanical counters at the central station. For each remote location, there is a separate lead extending from the central console to the relays. Hence, installation and maintenance of the prior art system are difficult, time consuming and expensive, and become onerous for a system involving more than 20 remote locations. In addition, the space required at the central console for more than 20 units is extensive.
The prior art system also suffers because it is relatively inflexible. If beverages, such as liquor, can be dispensed only during certain times, manual operations must be performed to disable the remote stations. Also, if it is desired to change the location of the dispensing apparatus, for example, from one room to another, or to selectively install more than one dispensing installation in a single room, as may be desirable for receptions, a general rewiring is necessary. Obviously, such a rewiring is generally not feasible. In the prior art system, the use of only one wire between each remote location and the central console, severely limits the amount of data which can be transmitted between the remote locations and the central stations. Thereby the transmission between the remote location and central console of valuable information is limited; exemplary of this information are indications of which reservoirs are empty and which locations are properly operating. It is therefore necessary for an actual inspection to be made of the remote location dispensing installation to determine auxiliary information, such as which reservoirs are empty and which need maintenance. In the prior art system, it is necessary for the charge for each dispensing operation to be the same, regardless of the nature of the liquid being dispensed. This is because there is a summation of the total number of dispensing operations from each remote location, rather than an indication of the number of dispensing operations from individual reservoirs at a particular location.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved system for indicating and controlling the dispensing of beverages from a plurality of locations in response to communications established between the remote locations and a central station.
Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved, flexible system that enables only a single pair of leads to communicate information from a central location to each of a plurality of remote locations, at each of which is located a plurality of beverage reservoirs.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved remote control and indicating system for plural reservoirs at each of several remote locations, wherein for each location there are performed several operations, such as determining which reservoirs are empty, as well as diagnostic procedures.
A further object of the invention is to provide a new and improved communication system for indicating and controlling the dispensing of beverages from a plurality of liquid reservoirs, at each of a plurality of locations remote from a central location, wherein the communication system and circuits associated therewith require a relatively small amount of maintenance, and wherein control and diagnostic procedures for units at the remote locations can be performed exclusively at the central station.